What Microsoft's opening up Xbox Games platform means for Developers

Earlier in the Month, Microsoft announced that the Xbox Live Creators Program will allow any game developer to publish Xbox Live-enabled games on Xbox One and for Windows 10 platform.

According to Microsoft, with the Creators Program, anyone can integrate Xbox Live sign-in, presence, and social features into their Universal Windows Platform (UWP) games, then publish the game to Xbox One and Windows 10.

What this means is that game developers would get maximum exposure for their games, from every Xbox One owner across the Xbox One family of devices, as well as hundreds of millions of Windows 10 PCs, and millions of folks using the Xbox app on mobile devices.

Microsoft had previously opened up the Xbox Store to app developers, and now, this current move goes to show the company's resolve to embracing open web ideology.

The Xbox Live Creators Program is aimed to empower anyone to rapidly publish Xbox Live-enabled games on Xbox One and Windows 10 PCs, which in turn will help Microsoft cover-up on apps-deficit on its platforms.

Albeit, games published through the Creators Program isn't on equal footing with the latest AAA shooter from big publishers: for Xbox One, games published through the Xbox Live Creators Program is made available in a new “Creator games section” within the store.

And for those wishing to integrate with Xbox Live services and publish their games on the Xbox or Windows Store, will require approval from Microsoft first, through a program called ID@Xbox.